On November 4 a very interesting conference took place in The Netherlands. This conference covered ways in which the principles of Policy Governance® could help CEOs to do a better job empowering their staff . So, it was not a conference for boards, but a conference for managers trying to benefit from PG- principles to enrich their own repertoire of management. The one-day conference was simply named "Policy Governance® in management".
 
The idea was born in Vail, at the IPGA Conference of 2008, where a delegation of Dutch participants sat down and discussed the similarities between a board empowering its CEO and holding him/her accountable for the performance of his/her organization and the CEO empowering his/her staff and holding staff accountable for their own performance. Since most of these delegates from the Netherlands work for Educational organizations the conference focused on CEOs of the educational sector. Jan & Manette Maas and Helmie van Ravestein added the necessary knowledge about Policy Governance®  to the organizing parties.
 
We were privileged to have Eric Craymer, skilled both in Policy Governance® and in strategic management, come over to the Netherlands to do the keynote presentation. Afterwards the seventy five participants split up to participate in two of four possible workshops: one about "focus on results: the power of distinguishing between ends and means", one about "unity and diversity: the power of limiting rather than instructing", one about "give and take: the power to decide and the necessity to account for decisions" and one about "balance between control and creativity".
 
All in all, an interesting adventure for both the organizers (who acted much more as facilitators of a thinking process than as experts) and for the attendees (who felt inspired and gave the event a good feedback). The organizing parties will confer about follow-up activities soon.
 
-Jan Maas